Saturday, January 21, 2012

Saturday



It began to rain in the early hours last night, and I woke abruptly at the drip, drip, drip from the metal awning over the steps that lie at my back door. I sat up, completely awake, got out of bed and grabbed the flashlight that I keep by the side of my bed in case there's an earthquake. I put on my clogs and opened the door, walked outside through the drips and to the timer for the sprinkler system. I shut it off, thinking about possums, whether they stay away when it's raining and where they stay if they do. I also thought about the water saved and the money saved by my vigilance in turning it off and then rolled my eyes at myself for thinking these thoughts at four am. When I went inside, I forgot to dash through the drip and was soaked so I pulled off my pajama top and put on another and got back into bed wondering how it was possible to wake so suddenly and think about so many trivial things. It sort of scared me and sort of disgusted me, too. So much for remembering convoluted dreams or feeling hazy and sexy and stretching contentedly. I wonder whether all the stress and thinking works to dull down the subconscious. I think of the days when I waited tables, and my nights were filled with weird and wonderful dreams of minutia -- tables filled with red wine glasses, only a tiny bit in each one, all needing to be cleared in that instant, fish that coiled up off of plates and into customers' laps, endless back and forths with undercooked steaks, yapping mouths and tiny plastic ketchup containers. Now when I wake it's wondering whether they'll play lacrosse in the rain (yes) and how much, exactly, is saved when the sprinklers don't come on.

14 comments:

  1. I remember those waitress dreams. Teetering trays with platters of surf and turf tipping into patrons laps. No, wait that REALLY happened...
    I usually wake at 3:30. I often think of my children, wondering how their days will begin. I think of trivia too, and what I should do and haven't done and might never do, what I want to do--sometimes in the confines of just that new day, sometimes in a broader time span.
    And I'm going outside right now to turn off my sprinklers.

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  2. Whew, isn't that the truth about the 4am thoughts. I had to decide recently that I have no decision making authority at 4am, because that's often the time when the stress starts sounding really rational.

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  3. A strange time, indeed. Watering in January: now, that's Southern California!
    W

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  4. Since I live at high altitude, I'm looking VERY longingly at your garden. What a treat in the middle of winter! About 2 years ago, I had a heart attack at 4 AM - it's taken me a long time to get dreams back. If I'd wake up suddenly, I'd immediately do a full-body scan. Finally, I think that's over - now, I might pad over to the window to see if it's snowing.

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  5. I think remembering those convoluted dreams of our subconcious depends on where you are in your sleep cycle when you wake up. Obviously 4 am is a lousy time for you to be suddenly awaken.

    I love the lucid dreaming that I experience when I allow myself to sleep in longer than usual. Just before I wake up, in that sliver of space where awakening and sleeping overlap, my conscious self gets a peek at those dreams lurking in my subconscious.

    But no wierd and wonderful waitressing dreams for me. Unfortunately, all the waitressing dreams of my youth were about anxiety - not being ready and feeling overwhelmed.

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  6. Mr. Moon COMPLAINS that when we are in Mexico, he sleeps so much that he has dreams.
    Can you imagine?
    Ah love- there is nothing we can worry about at four a.m. which is really worth worrying about. I swear.

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  7. I never had anxiety dreams the likes of which I did when I was waitressing. Really crazy ones like I'm the only waitress in the restaurant and the place fills up and then when I go to the back to out in my orders there's no chef or anyone in the kitchen at all so I have to cook all the food, too. It's just me alone, all me. Wait, that kind of sounds like a metaphor for my life these days...

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  8. It's so true! I wake sometimes in the middle of the night thinking about the most trivial things. (Usually they seem huge at the time and trivial when I fall back to sleep and wake again hours later.) Maybe it's evolutionary. Maybe humans thousands of years ago woke in a hypersensitive state of mind, in order to avoid prowling nocturnal saber-toothed tigers? Just a thought.

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  9. My god, Elizabeth. This is beautiful, and so true.

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  10. What I find so delicious about this is that it feels like dreaming to read it. Where are the possums sleeping...indeed.

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  11. A master class in mindfulness.

    I am reading on my kindle during my travels but not commenting much. Just wanted you to know I am here.

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  12. In my experience, I most often dream about what is consuming my life - thus the waiting tables dreams in my 20s. But when I awake in the night, the thoughts that come rushing in are those neurotic ones that simply aren't allowed access in the light of day. I have learned to simply open the floodgates, let them have their day in the sun and watch them wash down the drain so I can go back to sleep.

    Sweet dreams!

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